Evidence of a crime is collected and used in the prosecution of the individuals committing the crime. Both public officials, such as police officers, and private individuals, such as security personnel at a facility, can identify and collect evidence. Evidence can take the form of damaged property, fingerprints, items left at the scene of a crime, and accounts of eye witnesses to a crime.
Recordings of a crime are a valuable type of evidence because they can reveal when, where, how, and by whom a crime is committed. Video recordings of a crime can be created by security cameras, dash-mounted cameras in police vehicles, cellular telephones, or handheld video recorders. Audio recordings of a crime can be created by voice recorders, monitored walkie-talkies, cellular telephones, or hidden microphones.
Relevant documents can be created by financial transactions, computer applications with logging functionality, or even the criminals themselves when organizing or planning a crime. Such documents are sometimes gathered in connection with the investigation or prosecution of a crime.
The legal requirements for the gathering and presentation of admissible evidence vary somewhat from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. A common thread among most jurisdictions is that to rebut allegations of evidence tampering it is useful to show an uninterrupted chain of custody for the evidence in question.